"I am dreaming while I am awake." That's how Haruki Murakami describes the writing of his surreal fictions. Now out is his novel Kafka on the Shore, a fantastical Oedipal tale that was a bestseller in his native Japan, selling 460,000 copies in two months. Read an extract from the novel and check out John Updike's review in The New Yorker. more inside

Dr. Gene Ray interviewed on TechTV (Windows Media File - right click & save) - I had no idea that the Time Cube guy had been interviewed on TV. Here we can see him explain his ideas in his own words. If those are words. c/o Time Cube Central more inside

"Planes, Trains and Plaintains" From "this is my thesis statement" all the way to "this is my conclusion", Mr. Freeman may have not had a chance with his Comparative Lit teacher but I think he just won over jaded lit majors everywhere. via BlackTable

How to build a lightsaber in 20 minutes Either the coolest bit of geek DIY evah, of proof positive that there is such a thing as too much time on your hands.

Protest this! (Would've posted the link, but as far as I can tell this is pretty buried, via New York Daily News pg. 14 article) Three New York Emergency Vehicles to be included in Bush's inaugrual parade. more inside

Epi-curious George Has anyone been to the "soup nazi" that was made famous on Seinfeld? And if you have, was the soup that good, or was it just sort of fun being waited on by a surly chef? This leads me to my real question. Do you have any places that you like to go where the wait-staff/chef/bartender is a nazi? I remember hearing about a bar in San Francisco that only serves old school martinis and will bodily eject you if you order a "sour apple" martini (god bless them) and when I went to Philly I was taken to a cheese sandwich shop where I was told that I had to order in a local dialect ("one steak with everything") to get served. So monkeys, do you have any dining/drinking establishments with such strict rules?

Jesus Christ! A Condom! Apparently, Spanish Catholics are ready to make the leap into the 20th century...a hundred years late. more inside

Roses are red, Violets are blue, I got the clap, so you do too. Wow. This is just a cold way to do it. I'll exchange fluids with you, but won't call you about a potentially life threatening situation?

Yikes! A bill in California (PDF text of bill) may send the heads of some filesharing companies rolling by making it illegal to distribute the software without ensuring pornography or copyrighted material isn't being shared. But who has the time to take "reasonable care" to prevent copyright infringement of all those users? The bill's author: "Even if you aren’t selling crack, you can’t have a crack house." more inside

SMACKDOWN! more inside

"Symbols.com contains more than 2,500 Western signs, arranged into 54 groups according to their graphic characteristics." You can browse starting here or search using the graphic index or the word index. more inside

Curious George: router confusion I'm trying to play a fairly basic cribbage game (http://www.cribbage.ca) with a friend online, and I suspect that our D-Link routers are fogging our IP addresses. We're also both using ZoneAlarm, and Windows XP on PCs. I know nothing of routers and firewalls and bears, oh my. Anybody have any idea how we can connect?

They're EVERYWHERE! Well, this bit of Flash animation is titled "Fags in Space." As a terrestrial fag, I can't decide whether to be amused or annoyed by this. I'm leaning towards being amused, but I want my copy of Vogue back. NSFW.

Curious George; Rape VS Beat-down Why is rape perceived as something forever scarring, while something similar, like a vicious beating to either a man or woman featuring the same kind of violent physical and psychological dominance is seen as traumatic, but not something that would prompt you to identify as a "beating survivor". To me it feels like the 'women as fragile flower' idea yet again, with overtones of women's sexual 'purity' being the property of the larger sociaty rather than the individual woman. more inside

The Hasselhoffian Recursion. I've never wanted to die this much in my life. Hypnotic, truly.

Unlickable Nameneko - Don't lick me! Once upon a time in a place called Japan, there used to be a big fad for people to dress up their cats in costumes, place them in little diorama-like sets & take pictures of them. Cats in Japan must be of a particularly patient or semi-comatose breed. more inside

We love our lamb! A scandal is half-heartedly brewing over Meat and Livestock Australia's new pro-carnivore advertising campaign. For non-(and un-)Australian monkeys, the ads can be seen and heard here.

MetaFilter is stumped! Curious George: I can't access Kingdom of Loathing and it's driving me batty. more inside

<b>Curious George: Growing Up Girl</b> A friend and I are working on a resource book for young females, sort of an "owners manual" for the female body. My questions to female monkeys is, "What do you wish you had known/been told earlier?" more inside

The Gallery page of bookplates.org is just one neat page to scroll down. Oh-so civilized even when the designs are, well, not, the bookplate always seemed wondrous to me. Do you have a bookplate? If you don't, what would your design be? Anyone have links to some great ones?